Bruce Miller, UCM UL

Brian Schottlaender was unable to attend today.

Bruce serves as the convener of the Council of ULs.

Message to deliver about the budget situation. It is real, serious, and this is a time of transforming, radical changes, and it is not optional.

Priorities for Collective Initiatives- for all of the UC libraries. Why are we doing this & what are the forces driving us to put these priorities together?

"The Forces"

• The Budget
• also faced with neverending price increases on collections. something has to change.
• overwhelmed by newly created digital services & confounded by new digitization of content (such as research data). Resources such as Merritt can add up to be very expensive (it costs about 1,000/yr/TB...what about a researcher with a PB of data?).
• We need to evolve w/ the new undergrad generation & their knowledge/skill set. If we don't, they will go elsewhere
• We are out of physical space for the collections
• What can we do to try to take leadership & make some strategic moves to solve these forces to ultimately support scholarly enterprise?

1. Report- The UC Library Collection- Content for the Future & Beyond. We are going to follow this. This is where our priorities are. Note that this says Library- not Libraries.
2. Next Gen Melvyl. This is not trivial, it is a huge strategic platform for us to move ahead. It opens us to doing new ways of business.
3. Next Gen Tech. Services. Where are with with this? Wants us to understand where this process is. The ULs have explicitly said, of the recommendations that came to them, which sets are of: high priority, medium priority, items that are not going to be seen through. No longer interested in people's opinions on the reports. They are now in implementation phase.
• the formal discharge was Jan 24. Prior to that, in mid-December, sent out the final report as widely as possible. Nobody picked up in this report that it says, "This is what we are doing". SOPAG is responsible for following through.
• SOPAG is charged to implement NGTS as specified by the Council of ULs. They are working on the structure for doing this.

Observations from SOPAG. "The Rough Draft":

• transformation is an evolving process. Cost savings & cost-avoidance are strategic, but they don't completely solve the budget problems.
• current focus is on Implementation & Action- not on more studying of the processes.
• want some "quick wins early"- some things in the process will take a long time, some will be implemented immediately
• continuous vetting must happen throughout these processes- at all levels. must keep everyone informed. Not looking for input from people, but want people to think "can I contribute something Useful that might help make this move along?"
• leverage the existing members of the all-campus groups. Always thinking in a systemwide benefit.
• Continuously assess, revise, & adjust this implementation framework.

As SOPAG members are appointment, great attention is paid to the expertise brought to the group. Want a varied representation of expertise. Not accidental who is appointed to SOPAG

-Within SOPAG will build an NGTS Management Team. Will have 5-6 pp on the team, including 2 or 3 sopag members, past chair of ngts steering committee, project manager & communication manager)

Power of Three Groups- responsible for implementing specific groups of the high & medium priority recommendations. At least 1 sopag member to serve as a "sponsor" and 2 other members from one of the All campus Groups.

-charged w/ Make it Happen, deal w/ project mgmt, and take care of Communication

Lightning Bolt Teams- responsible for Action items. Charged w/ very specific tasks.

Structure:

SOPAG

NGTS Management Team

POTS

**This is all going to happen rapidly

Questions:

- As part of this on-going vetting process, does this include openness at this point to suggestions related to receiving documents generated from programs held at individual campuses discussing this topic?

Answer: Speaking for himself (Bruce Miller), thanks, but not particularly interested in this. Why? Because we have already made decisions & are moving forward. Professionally speaking, yes, we'll take a look at it.

- How & when will we have a chance to assist w/ implementation?

Answer: We are going to do these things, regardless. As for implementation, SOPAG is in charge & will assign the groups. Those groups will be in charge of moving forward & communication- which may help with people feeling left out or confused. This is a change in how we have historically done things & he wants people to understand that.

- 2 questions about governance of systemwide tech services, post-implementation.

1. As for the teams- there was no team on governance.

2. As a LAUC member, how can LAUC best position itself to continue to perform its advisory role in relation to whatever new governance structure is established?

Answer: The SLASIAC outcomes explicitly said that the final report will be given to Council of ULs. Are we going to evolve as we continue working? Things should naturally arise that will make clear the changes that need to be established

- Please talk about Shared monographs & Shared print in place groups.

Answer: All of these activities & other are factors taken into account. In response to budget & space limitations, not going to buy 10 copies of the same book. Different libraries will buy different books & will share them with each other. Shifting more towards the UC Library collective.

- Next Gen Melvyl- not an adequate substitute for the current OPACs we have. Not sure if this feedback has arrived at the level of the ULs. This is a very serious issue & needs to be usable for the library patrons. There have been options that have been ignored.

Answer: Where are we going to get the money? Trying to look at the big picture & what will work for the long term. We need to get out of the "we don't move ahead unless it's perfect" mindset. When looking at big picture, the budget, of trying to be in a leadership role, we need to go with NGM. The UC systemwide is moving forward.

- Comments made over & over by members- the SLASIAC reports are broad statements w/o references to reports or studies. We want to follow up on these statements. Would like the ULs to "step up to the bibliographic citation plate".

Answer: There are heavily embedded footnotes & links. Go to the NGTS website & read the documents. The data is all there. SLASIAC is a work in progress.

Bruce Miller: There is a LAUC rep on every all-campus group. Also every librarian on the groups, they are all LAUC members. Carry your responsibility w/ you and speak up.

- Can we truly have faith that we are being listened to? From the beginning with the pilot public service librarians started noticing problems, which is to be expected. Have complaints from faculty & students trying to use the system. Shortly after NGM started, it was the default catalog. Faculty would complain to the librarians & the reference desk. All complaints were passed on to the appropriate body & it feels as if we were not listened to.

Answer: We are seeking input. The complaints to go up the chain & get worked on. We have data that show problems for our users. We did real studies w/ end users & received overwhelmingly positive responses.